Nemo James

26th February 2010

I took Federika to the airport as her three-week stay had come to an end. I was sad to see her go but we had done a lot while she was there and I needed to help David and Laura with the many jobs that were left over from the building work and they didn’t have the time or money to employ workmen. It was my little contribution to the project.

I settled into a routine of amusing myself in the mornings and DIY in the afternoon. I can turn my hand to most things but may not be the tidiest workman in the world.

At 6 pm every night they closed the Café and we had dinner whilst watching television. It was not long before they both fell asleep which was not surprising considering they got up around 5 am every day. I doubt if they ever finished a TV program as they usually slept until their alarm rang telling them to go to bed.

I went fishing one day and finding it too windy on the beach in Betty’s Bay, I drove 15 kilometres to a bay that was out of the wind where I could fish from some rocks. It was a lovely setting but I got my line caught up in rocks on the first cast. I gave it one more try and was surprised when I hooked a fish with the next cast. It looked like a reasonable size but when reeling it in, the line got caught up in the rocks with the fish still on. It was just a few yards from where I was standing so I climbed down and picked the fish up so as not to break the line. Just as I was feeling pleased with myself, a big wave crashed onto the rocks in front of me and soaked me from head to foot. I went back to where I had been standing and took a look at the fish only to find it was some kind of inedible sand shark so I had to throw it back in anyway. I decided to go back to the beach and brave the wind.

By the time I got to the beach, the wind had calmed down and as it was still quite hot my clothes soon dried out. I put down my rucksack, took out my fishing gear and bait and cast out from the edge of the shore. For bait, I had bought some squid, pilchards and some white mussels. After ten minutes I had a bite but no fish so I turned around to put some more bait on when I noticed the mussels and squid were scattered around instead of where I had left them. I assumed the wind had blown them which was why a lot of the bait was missing. I baited my hook again and cast out. A couple of minutes later I turned around to find a seagull strutting around my bait looking very pleased with itself, unable to make up its mind which delicacy to try next. By now the seagull had eaten 80% of my bait. I stayed there for a couple of hours and although I had lots of bites, I was surprised that I caught nothing. Someone told me that where I was fishing there were a lot of crayfish who were adept at nibbling away at bait without getting caught. Even if I had caught one I would have had to throw it back as a licence was needed to catch crayfish and there were hefty fines for breaking the law.

I was working on my laptop in the cafe one morning when a man walked in wearing an Arab headdress, his wife was in Western clothing. There was a book club with ten people having a coffee morning in a corner of the café.  Laura told me the arab man came in quite often in the mornings to drink whisky. Even without seeing his top-of-the-range BMW, you could tell he had a lot of money. Being an accomplished multi-tasker I have no problem typing and listening to people’s conversations so I listened intently as he spoke to someone on his phone.

“So why did you ask my wife if she was scared of me?”

One look at his wife told me she was terrified of her husband who was talking like a gangster. I was desperate to hear more so I frantically signalled to Laura to stop making so much noise with the espresso machine. He continued in a voice that contained a hint of death threat,

“Let me tell you, you have made a big mistake. The next time you want money you come to me and not to my wife. Do you understand?”

This had to be some serious shit going down. Something to do with drugs, gunrunning or people trafficking? My ears were on high alert when he concluded his conversation with the words,

“ok……..  bye mama.”

Before leaving the cafe, he called Laura over. With anyone else, I would have been concerned for her safety but Laura can look after herself. He said,

” I would like to ask you something and hope you won’t be offended.” I waited apprehensively for the clash of the Titans when he continued,

“God had been good to me. I would like to pay the bill for the people in the book club.”

Laura asked him if she should tell the book group who had paid the bill but he said no, “Just say it was from a mysterious stranger.”

CONTINUE